Tag Archive for Shawon Dunston

Here’s Ken Boswell’s 1971 Topps baseball card. That’s the Cardinals’ Vic Davalillo arriving too late to break up the double play as Boswell works the pivot between shortstop Al Weis and first baseman Art Shamsky. The card — which must be one of the only Mets cards that includes a view of the Whitestone — was shot on May 28, 1970, in the 6th inning of a game that Mets were losing 6-0 to the Cards. Boswell, however, was having a good afternoon. He’d go 3-for-3 in this game with a double, a sac fly, and both Met RBIs in what became a 9-2 loss. Against Bob Gibson, not bad.

Boswell wore No. 12, which is apropos in that this month marks the 12th anniversary of Mets by the Numbers, which I’ve determined “went live” for the the first time on Feb. 22, 1999. This makes MBTN one of the real dinosaurs of the Metosphere; the Ultimate Mets Database, whose awesome powers I use to determine things like what happened to the Mets on May 28, 1970, debuted at around the same time. A site called Mets Online, founded by the current Yankees beat writer for MLB.com (!) and whose offspring today operates as NY Sportsday, was around then too, but not sure of many others. No. 12 was then in a dark period following Jorge Fabregas’s departure and the coming of the Shawon Dunston Era later that year.

Boswell was a Met for eight seasons and possessed a pretty good left-handed bat for a second baseman, especially for his era. A few injuries interrupted his early progress, and he’d eventually be displaced as the regular second baseman by Felix Millan, but he remained a useful player who batted 1.000 in the 1973 Word Series (3-for-3, all pinch hits) and clubbed home runs in consecutive games in the 1969 NLCS rout of the Braves. When Willie Randolph namechecked Ken Boswell while taking the No. 12 jersey, it might have been his finest moment as Mets manager.

The No. 12 jersey has been an interesting one in Mets history. The all-time No. 12 was probably John “Bad Dude” Stearns, a four-time All-Star and all-time tough guy. Twelve was also the best of Ron Darling’s three numbers as a Met: He went 68-38 with a 3.38 ERA wearing 12 — and 31-32, 3.73 wearing other numbers (44 and 15, respectively). Darling’s the only Mets pitcher to ever have worn 12.

Twelve belonged to Tommy Davis during his outstanding (and only) Mets season in 1967; and to maddening chatty hacker Jeff Francoeur in 2009 and 2010. It currently belongs to Scott Hairston, who’s likely to be a pinch-hitter and hopefully not a full-time player for the 2011 squad. One day, we may remember 12 as the number belonging to two Hall of Famers who endured difficult stays in Metville: Jeff Kent (who probably deserves in) and Roberto Alomar (who’ll be enshrined this summer).

It’s a shame that such a heroic effort from Johan Santana and altogether excellent seasons from Reyes, Wright, Beltran and Delgado have gone to waste, and I won’t happily endure my team becoming a national joke again, but the Mets, you gotta believe, pretty much got what they deserved again this year.

Yeah the bullpen was awful but we knew that. What was hardest for me to take was the poor execution from the offense — never more obvious than in the 9th inning of what today was confirmed to be my final trip to Shea Stadium (those NLDS tickets I printed up yesterday join my 1988 World Series tickets in the ultility drawer) on Wednesday. It was a leadoff triple for god sakes.

Considerably more subtle but just as telling a moment occurred in the bottom of the 6th inning on Friday night. This was long before Mets were out of it: They’d just scored to cut the deficit to 3-1 and the tying runs were on third and first. The situation called for a pinch hitter to extend the rally with two outs and who emerges from the dugout?

As Randy Myers once asked of Gregg Jefferies: Are we even trying? Omar sure wasn’t when he re-signed this guy — for two years — based on a decent 60-some times at bat following a well-earned unconditional release by the Dodgers last summer. Anderson produced one hit — an infield dribbler that didn’t reach the pitcher’s mound — since his return from the disabled list and was making outs at 75% clip all year long. This was our Danny Heep? Our Matt Franco or Shawon Dunston? The first guy we called on when the correct play was to go slam one off the wall?

Anderson, we needen’t be reminded, struck out swinging, ending the rally and beginning a parade of ineffective relievers who, just like Anderson, were retained foolishly, performed ineffectively, and nevertheless remained in heavy rotation while the trade deadline came and went. Of course they lost it. Of course the weight of so many poor players was eventually too much to bear.

Omar did get rid of an ineffective manager, but whether he waited too long to do that is a fair question too. Why is not surprising that the first move of the offseason will reportedly be to retain him for too long?

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Now onto important matters: Ever alert reader Gordon over the weekend pointed out some guy wearing uniform No. 64, and on Sunday “as they were leaving the bench to make tee times” he got the above capture (see a larger photo here). Who is that guy? Any ideas? Thanks!